In the future, when we hover in zero-gravity chairs, wipe away genetic imperfections and take vitamin showers, we also can have virtual sex with whomever we choose. In Nate Kenyon’s PRIME, there’s a machine just for that, whether you want a hunk or Henry VIIII.
But it’s killed three people recently. Is it due to a virus? Human tampering? The religious right? Celebrity bug-hunter William Bellow is brought in by the New London corporation to find out why its technology is short-circuiting its users.
[click to continue…]
from VARIOUS FLAVORS OF COFFEE by Anthony Capella:
“That evening, as I walked down Piccadilly, I passed a carriage horse trying to copulate with a mare. … It made a strange sight: the stallion, still harnessed to the shafts of the carriage, was attempting to clamber on to the mare’s back, prodding his great pizzle into her hindquarters. Each time he slipped off, pulled backwards by the unwieldy weight of the brougham; yet, nothing daunted, he immediately returned for another attempt, pulling himself clumsily up again with his front hoofs, like a Chinaman trying to clasp a piece of meat with chopsticks. The mare, for her part, stood for it patiently, barely moving when the stallion took the skin of her neck between his teeth. The back end of the carriage had ripped up, and was being crashed around on the road with every staggering thrust of the stallion’s rear legs. … Eventually the driver of the brougham returned and began shouting at his beast, trying to force it off. Of course the stallion had no intention of all at stopping, even when its master began laying into it with a whip. … Eventually the stallion was done, and slid off the mare of his own volition, the battered brougham returning to the level with a crash. The horse’s pizzle was still dripping onto the cobbles when the owner finally succeeded in trotting him away, to an ironic cheer from the watchers.”
Buy it at Amazon.
Guys, don’t even pretend that you’ve never thought of Lois Lane in “that way.” Perhaps one of your fantasies even mirrors those depicted in SECRET IDENTITY: THE FETISH ART OF SUPERMAN’S CO-CREATOR JOE SHUSTER. Here, comics historian Craig Yoe has uncovered a side of Shuster that no one knew existed: a desperate gig in the 1950s illustrating stroke stories for porno mags.
There’s a whole twisted story behind the crude, underground publications, which Yoe reveals led to a bizarre “thrill killers” murder trial. And to think that the co-creator of the clean-cut Superman was all caught up in it. It’s absurd! It’s inane! It’s the true-comics find of the year!
[click to continue…]
Having problems in your marriage? Buying a house isn’t going to solve things. And that goes double if that house is haunted.
‘Tis a lesson Conrad Harrison learns the hard way, in Christopher Ransom’s debut novel, THE BIRTHING HOUSE. He’s married — by a thread, it seems — to Jo, a successful L.A. businesswoman who has always outearned him. That paradigm shifts when Conrad’s father is killed in an accident and he inherits a huge settlement check, roughly half of which he plunks down on an old, Victorian fixer-upper in a Wisconsin small town.
[click to continue…]
Another website becomes a book in Pamela Redmond Satran’s HOW NOT TO ACT OLD: 185 WAYS TO PASS FOR PHAT, SICK, HOT, DOPE, AWESOME, OR AT LEAST NOT TOTALLY LAME. It does just what it says, with advice dished on everything from Facebooking to pop-culture references that instantly date you.
Whether these tips are to be considered purely practical or taken with grain a salt, I’m unsure, because Satran writes with admirable wit. Each topic is handled quickly, sometimes with a fun list as accompaniment. If you don’t know that SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimization,” you’re exactly the target this work seeks.
[click to continue…]
